Once upon a hoopty...

NCAA removes FSU from banned list of nicknames

BY MICHELLE KAUFMAN

mkaufman@herald.com

Seminoles they will stay.

The Florida State University athletic department celebrated a major victory on Tuesday when the NCAA announced it had removed FSU from its list of universities subject to restrictions on the use of Native American mascots and nicknames.

Earlier this month, the NCAA told FSU and 17 other schools that their use of a Native American mascot and nickname was inappropriate, and that mascots deemed ''hostile or abusive'' would be prohibited from appearing on team uniforms during NCAA-sanctioned tournaments beginning in February 2006.

FSU president T.K. Wetherell threatened legal action. The school appealed the NCAA ruling on the grounds that its six-decade relationship with the Seminole Tribe of Florida was one of mutual respect, so much so that the tribe in June passed a unanimous proclamation offering its endorsement of FSU's nickname and mascot, Chief Osceola.

The NCAA, upon review, decided to scratch FSU from its list.

''The NCAA Executive Committee continues to believe the stereotyping of Native Americans is wrong,'' read an NCAA statement from Bernard Franklin, VP for Governance/membership. ``However, in its review of the particular circumstances regarding Florida State, the staff review committee noted the unique relationship between the university and the Seminole Tribe of Florida as a significant factor.

``The NCAA recognizes the many different points of view on this matter, particularly within the Native American community. The decision of a namesake sovereign tribe, regarding when and how its name and imagery can be used, must be respected even when others may not agree.''

Andy Haggard, a Coral Gables attorney and vice chair of the FSU Board of Trustees, was thrilled with the news.

''The NCAA showed great wisdom,'' Haggard said by phone from Daytona Beach, where he was involved in a trial. ``We never should have been included in that list. It should never have come to this. But I'm extremely happy with the final result. I can see banning names like Savages or Redskins, but Seminole is completely different. The NCAA is finally treating the Seminole tribe with the dignity they deserve.''

Among the other school still on the list are the University of Illinois (Illini), University of Utah (Utes), and Central Michigan (Chippewas).

''The NCAA position on the use of Native American mascots, names and imagery has not changed, and the NCAA remains committed to ensuring an atmosphere of respect and sensitivity for all who participate in and attend our championships,'' read the statement. ``This decision applies to the unique relationship Florida State University has with the Seminole Tribe of Florida. Requests for reviews from other institutions will be handled on a case-by-case basis.''

Tonight was the most romantic night I've had in a while. In a good two years, no doubt. It's 3 am and I haven't gone to sleep yet. I watched a movie with a friend as a bit of advice to go get the girl he loves. I had a wonderful two-hour conversation with a gal, and let me go ahead and clarify that it was merely nice friendly conversation with an attractive member of the opposite sex and nothing more and that is, in fact, what was so great about it. All of this was sandwiched in my watching of Love Actually.

"Two movies in one night?" you're asking? Yes well, bugger off, they're cheap here and the video store rents 2 for 1 and the first movie was for the above-mentioned friend. "Bugger off?" you're asking, "Are you altogether British, then?" No, actually, although I seem to have been reading quite a few books authored by Britons and watching one or two movies taking place there. Right, then, have all questions been answered? Jolly good, let's off to continue our discussion of the movie.

I'm supposed to be off tomorrow (I was supposed to have been off today, but plans changed) for lands to the north and so watching both movies was a bit of a stupid idea. I had a time set for the first movie (6) and so couldn't really get another movie taken care of before i had to go watch the other, but when i sat down to supper, I figured I could maybe start the movie and then finish it when i got back or in the morning or never or whatever. I was absolutely drawn in. I do love ensemble casts, and the writer/director's views of love were stunning and blew me away. The pain was severe, the longing ached, the devotion was amazing beyong words. Every love that was touched upon in this movie went straight for the heart and is something that we all deal with. It was a discussion of the world around us and the director pulled no punches, even refering to the 9/11 incident, to showcase the love that surrounds us all. I feel giddy at having stayed awake for it all and after pausing the film 30 minutes in to go watch another one, I knew that I could not sleep tonight without finishing.

And the evening (morning) ends itself with my taking the Witts off for their trip to El Salvador. They'll be back later this week to get more stuff, but this is "the" trip. And that's romantic in and of itself, eh?

So, thank you all for the lovely, romantic evening. It's been a long time since I've stayed awake until 4:30 in the morning, and I have enjoyed every moment. Not too many evenings that I haven't wanted to end. Goodnight all, may your lives be sweeter than your dreams.

Okay, so I stole this from a friend, who stole from...and so on....

The deal is google "[your name] is" and find out some things about yourself that perhaps you didn't know.

Adam is...

-the ideal human male with his rippling muscles and elegant contours. (i always had a feeling this was true)

-not complete (tell me about it)

-"all things to all people." (me and Paul, ya'll)

-right. (Yer darn tootin!)

-an interesting study of lower working class characters

-slow and boring (hey, shut up!)

-a little slow and claustrophobic (hey, gimme a break guys!)

-basically a delightful child and is generally well liked

-not a metaphor (just to clear up any doubt)

-ten centimeters wide. (i may look a little chubbier, but the camera puts on 60 cm)

-drawn to bears (like, the big furry things)

-a hero

-forever having to move his Mac around with him. (i'm so glad I found this one)

-currently sold in the States at $700 (I was hoping I would go for more)

-three times more likely to win than Mercedes. I challenge german auto vehicles to foot races all the time)

-wear a tie (not really good grammar, but they do have a point)

-a welcome sight at every PTA meeting and his ideas are respected by both the PTA members and the school staff (what can i say? parents love me)

Give it a try.

This is the second time recently that I've laid down and just known that I wasn't going to be getting to sleep any time soon. I've never been one for insomnia, but it's never too late to start.

I was recommended Grapes of Wraths, the only book in my Steinbeck collection that I haven't finished and so I thought I'd get back to it. It turns out I was in chapter 10 which is about the family packing up and leaving Oklahoma. It was about saying goodbye and Steinbeck writes about anything so tragic better than anyone I can think of. They'll be going to California soon, as perhaps I shall. I may be in school in San Francisco a year from today and that's an exciting thought, but it's just one more chance to pick up and leave everything and everyone I know. Reading Steinbeck makes me want to be discontent with something or everything, or maybe I'm just discontent. Perhaps that's why I read discontent into the world around me in my previous post. Beg pardon if that was the case and I mistook personal feelings for universal human condition.

I am discontent right now and I think it's mostly due to slight inactivity. Not enough to do since I had to wait in town this week to make sure the Witts didn't need any extra help, and then with the power out for 3 days.... But I do have a lot, too much, really, on my mind. In fewer than three months I'll be home. My time here is coming to a close. This worries me because I don't feel like I've accomplished what I came to do, but since I don't know what I came to do, I think that is more the point. If I never set goals, I'll never reach them. So, instead of doing something, I worry in inactivity that I'm not doing anything. Pathetic.

Going home means I'll see family and friends, although I know they aren't the same as I left them, much as I am not the same. And how many friends will I really have the chance to run into? My friends have been scattered across the US and my hopes of running into them depend greatly on how much free time I have and how much of it can be taken up with travel with the sole purpose of visiting. I'll have to deal with the expectations of my parents, my culture, and my bosses in whatever jobs I acquire. I don't suppose the US is ready to accept that in my culture for the last two years 9am means before 10am and that running into a friend who needed some help is a good reason to be late for some things. I am between cultures now and it may take some time if I can ever feel fully part of my home culture again. Freaky. I will be moving back in with my parents for a little while and I'm sure this isn't going to be the Christmas homecoming I picture it to be in my mind. We'll all survive and I won't stop loving them, but we'll see what's in store.

The thought of settling down, if not in a location, at least with someone is becoming always more prominant in my mind. It really has been a lonely two years and i don't want to be alone anymore. I'm sure that being around my parents, at least having someone else in the house will be helpful in that regard, but there's an obvious desire for a mate. This is rather difficult because I've essentially been off the market for 2 years and while I know some gals here that are my age (gringa and nica), none of them are the one. That's the negative end, of course. The positive end is that I would love to just go out on a date, take a girl to a coffee house and just talk. I would love that.

I feel like no one ever told me how to be a man. I think that's what I always expected: "here son, this is how you gotta be a man." But growing up, I was not interested in spending time trying to become a man, I was busy being a kid. And I stayed being a kid until the summer after my sophomore year of college when suddenly I decided I wanted to be a man, after all. And now I feel like there were things I should've been paying attention to as a teenager that I didn't pay attention to and now I'm having to learn them on my own. Reading about the men slaughtering the pigs and loading up the trucks all night long, cause it had to be done validated to me that getting 7 hours of sleep a night isn't necessary, just preferable. I wish I had known that years ago; I wouldn't have been such a prick about getting to sleep sometimes.

Well maybe that'll put me to sleep. Goodnight.

In Nicaragua, lately, there have been many attacks in the media and by other politicians against the president, Enrique Bolaños. There were marches in the streets that turned violent including burning out buses. In response, some people decided to show their steadfast, but silent support of the president by putting a small nicaraguan flag on the window of their cars. Anyone who doesn't support the president was so outraged that they went and started putting up political party flags on their window just to show that they could make a statement, too. It all seems rather childish. And then I read this article.

Do we all have to be so childish? I mean, as one can read in my blog, I am not in support of the Sheehan lady, her demands, or her cause. That said, could people be opposed to her with a little more tact? Calling out into debate? Please. That is OBVIOUSLY not what she is about. And what does a debate resolve anyway? Whether or not we should be there in the first place? Whether or not we should still be there? When you use "should," you know you're getting into opinion and opinion cannot be debated. It's just a chance for everyone to scream and holler and show which side yells the loudest. And I think we all know which side would yell loudest were a debate to take place anywhere in the state of Texas, much less up the road from Bush's ranch. There is no need to protest the protest. I understand that it's the same thing that happened in the sixties that people protested so much and nothing ever got done and then the populace just got annoyed with them (which is why the nation-wide response to the Kent State shootings was only moderately shocked). And as much as I don't agree, I do think that makes it even more my responsibility to listen to a protestor with an open mind. Maybe I have missed something, after all. Protesting in general gets on my nerves (as it usually seems to be about "my rights" in a sue-happy time period), but to respond to protesting by protesting oneself just shows our natural condition of wanting to be discontent with something and lameness at not being creative enough to do so in a way that is meaningful.

For example, the way that the father of a dead soldier removed the cross bearing his son's name from the protest against the war. Doesn't he have a right to do so? Don't the protestor's have a right to name every america's son whose life was taken in a war they believe we shouldn't be in? I'm mostly just impressed by the father's actions (assuming he wasn't a jerk when he did it), even if he came across a little war-happy in his one quote in this article.

I don't even mean that we should agree to disagree. This is an important issue. I just think maybe we can be a little more tactful in trying to get the nation's attention and that may even help people understand the other point of view, or even change their own. I'm done.

EDIT: Okay, so I'm not done. I found this great quote by Ari Fleischer that I agree with. It mostly sums up my point.

Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said Bush's focus on the long term rather than the immediate is "part of what, to his supporters, is steadfastness and, to his critics, is stubbornness."

"If you allow those who are the most vocal and most antagonistic to get a meeting with the president for fear that publicity will hurt you if you don't, you're creating incentives for your critics to become even more antagonistic and more vocal," Fleischer said. "Then, you're forever stuck in: Will you or won't you meet? You'll no longer lead. You'll just wrestle with meetings."
(above is quoted from Washington Post article found here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/20/AR2005082001046.html)

It wasn't so much that there was a small tarantula on a pair of my pants, it's that I was putting them on.

The Sheehan lady in texas and all the media spotlight she's getting really grate on me. She's got such a martyr's complex. I am sorry that her son died in Iraq. I'll go so far as to say I'm sorry he died needlessly in Iraq for a war we shouldn't have been fighting in the first place. But, that's what he signed up to do. That's what the military is. I'm sure she loved her son. And what mother wants to see her son go off to war? I understand completely that she wanted to hide him in Canada. But he was a grown man. He joined the military, knowing the risks, and joined his fellow soldiers going to the place they were sent, knowing the risks and died bravely, doing what he felt was the right thing for the people or Iraq. Now. She wants someone to pay for his death. No one can bring him back any more than a child run over by a car can be brought back. Needless? Senseless? Meaningless (to her)? Sure. No doubt. And heartbreaking. And I suppose it is every mother's prerogative to believe that the death of her child is important enough to go straight to the president about, but it's also completely unrealistic. I can forgive all that. What gets me is as follows: Her demands. She demands that the President take time from his vacation (hey, let me see you get up from the couch when you're on YOUR vacation) to tell her why her son died. The President has done this. It is common knowledge. Even if you think the President is not telling the whole truth, what universe did you wake up in where politicians can speak the whole truth and still keep their jobs? And the worst is, she has told news reporters what is the answer she wants to hear. That her son died so that Petrol Magnates in the US can make money. She won't accept anything else. She is demanding that the president tell her something that she has already scripted out in her head. Anything less in unacceptable. The President. Of the United States of America, currently the most powerful nation in the world. Lady, who made you so important? How did you come to the conclusion that this is what is owed you? What broke this camel's back was an article I read today (see title link) in which she blindly assumes that all Texans (or whoever else lives in "Bush country") are out to attack her, just because they may not agree with her. Oh, come on, people. Not everyone who disagrees with you is a total jerk. Even this guy in the article is just being a Texan. He's right. He's not threatening anyone, but he does have the right to keep them off his land. And I do have to stand by him and Texans (this doesn't happen with me a whole lot) with his right to fire his weapon in the air on his property whenever he feels like it. If this is infringing on your rights, then get off his land. How dare anyone from either side of the political spectrum make this into a party-line situation. How dare this lady make the whole situation into an "us vs. them" thing. No one is out to get her, until she starts encroaching on their lives. And then she says they are peaceful. Sure, they aren't being physically violent, but they are trying to stir up things, not make things more peaceful. What she means to say is that they are being "non-violent." I'm sorry ma'am...and ladies...and all parents and loved ones of people who have died in this war or any other. I'm sorry to the loved ones all over the world who have lost children and spouses to war, especially to those relatives of the innocent bystanders. I'm sorry for your loss. But, Ms. Sheehan, I don't stand by your ridiculous statements and outrageous demands. To those of you who live in the nearby area, don't worry, she'll be gone in a month. Just take deep breaths and deal with it until then. The reporters might leave sooner.

EDIT: Someone mentioned that I took a little liberty with her son's views on the war. Granted. If I may rephrase and at least say that her son felt the right thing to do was finish out what he agreed to do in his contract with the military, even if he in no other way agreed with what he was doing over there. He was being a man and standing by his commitments and that, Ms. Sheehan, is what he died for. For personal integrity.

So, the first thing i read this morning online was this article, linked to the title above. Americans are such Americans. How cool is it that a state college would design classes culturally acceptable to visiting faculty from another country and culture. Who flippin cares if your teacher and all your classmates are the same sex as you or co-ed? We Americans are so short-sighted and so ethno-centric and overly concerned about "our rights." To make the situation more "American" it would probably be appropriate to have an alternative to a segregated class, but I can't imagine that in a country where segregation is the exception to the rule that it would automatically imply lowered standards, as one girl in the article griped about. Surely, we can forego our preferences for one class to honor the culture of visiting faculty? Wouldn't we expect or even demand the same hospitality when we travel abroad? (Answer, after having seen far too many Americans traveling abroad: Yes, we demand things in other countries be exactly like things are in the states even when that is impossible. [Example: I love it when people ask us if we can run to Wal-mart in Nicaragua...oh, you wish we had anything near a one-stop, buy anything in the world that you want store]) So, I don't think that we need to change our culture to suit the needs of visiting cultures, but what's wrong with catering a little bit every now and then especially with something as cool as a faculty exchange with an Middle Eastern country? These people are going to have a hard time doing anything else in this country like they would in their home country, at least we can try to make them a little more comfortable in their jobs.

okay, that's all.

There's not much better in the world than running into old friends with whom you've lost contact. I ran into a friend from college on IM last night with whom I hadn't spoken in a good three years, maybe even four. And we had a good conversation and reminded me of my great desire to travel and do adventurous things while I still can. So, I'm heading back to the states, and I would love to run into old friends, but if I don't any time soon, I hope that all my friends are doing fantastic, wonderful things and that they are loving who they are becoming.

Thinking about travel had me thinking about Wales. I don't know why. And Scotland. And I've decided that the only way to visit these places would be to live there for a few weeks/months. The thought of this is awesome. The reality of this is scary because it would mean either having the funds ahead of time to live in a foreign country or being able to scrap out a living in a place where I would either need a work visa (which is usually specific to job) or illegally make enough to live on. Even this doesn't scare me too much, but I would be afraid to do something like this because I know my parents would be on me all the time to stop it. I wonder how long an american can hang out in Britain without a visa? Wow, I just checked it out online...work program through BUNAC. Really cool. Check it out all you college students looking for a semester work-job in foreign lands.

Okay, I've run out of time. I'll talk more later. Maybe.

Adam's top music videos:

Beastie Boys- Sabotage (flying cars, PI spoof, absolute coolness)
Fat Boy Slim- Weapon of Choice (The one with Christopher Walken)
A-ha- Take On Me (spinning mirror tricks)
Offspring- The Kids Aren't Alright (updated technology's spinning mirror tricks)
R.E.M.- Bad Day (News Report: genius)
Coldplay- The Scientist [Edit: thanks to Ben]

I'm sure I've missed one or two. I'll edit some more in when I remember them.